Research published this month in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that there is a cause and effect relationship between smoking and depression.

Cigarette smoking, like depression, is not readily explicable. It is not straight forward. When the police came to tell me that Mottsu’s body was found I asked a friend to buy me cigarettes. There’s not research on cigarettes and consolation – not that I was consoled. Smoking then was almost in defiance. I have smoked a lot of cigarettes since then and then stopped as readily as I started.

I enjoy cigarettes, and I don’t smoke, that is I don’t identify as a smoker. I remember enjoying being a smoker way back a long time ago. I breathe deeply as I run the gauntlet of people who stand on the city streets smoking. I can’t watch an episode of Mad Men without longing for a cigarette. It’s deplorable and delicious.

Breathing, consciously inhaling and subsequently expelling air is one secret to surviving emotional distress. I remember waking and reminding myself to breathe. To thoughtfully produce each breath, a sign of living even when almost asphyxiated by grief.

Smoking didn’t foster depression, I enjoyed it too much for that.